Looking Ahead

Daniel K. Appelquist

First off, I'd like to thank all the people who responded to my call for submissions. I received over fifty submissions from some of you, and others have told me that more is on the way. My faith is definitely restored. I was certainly very excited to receive another story by Conrad Wong (`Teaching a Unicorn to Dance') which is a sort of sequel to his story from the last issue (`Chasing Unicorn Songs', February 1991). I'm very impressed with Conrad's work so far, and I certainly hope he can contribute more material in the future.

Secondly, I'd like to thank the people who sent in money, after my call for contributions in the last issue (February 1991). I still need more contributions if I'm to achieve my goal of being able to produce Quanta independently. I'd like more of you to send in $5, or whatever you can afford. Simply ask yourself what Quanta is worth to you, and then send that much. Again, it's entirely optional. I realize that many Quanta subscribers are students, like myself, who do not have an excessive amount of money lying around.

Thirdly, I'd like to address a matter of some note. This is the first issue of Quanta to _not_ carry a story by Christopher Kempke. This has nothing to do with me refusing to print any more of his stories, I simply don't have one (also a first) to publish. I'm sure that Chris will reappear in the next issue, but, just to be certain, you could send him some mail to encourage him. His address is kempkec@cs.orst.edu. Heh heh...

Seriously, I'm sorry this issue is so late. As I stated in my letter, last month, I was really suffering from a lack of material. Luckily, my volumes are now overflowing. That's not to say that I don't want you to keep sending. On the contrary, the more submissions, the better. Incidentally, I'd like to thank all the people who sent me Star Trek or Dr. Who stories (or parodies). I appreciate these, but it's not really the type of material I can publish. What I'm looking for, primarily, is original fiction which doesn't borrow its background from any other, possibly trademarked, universe. For example, I wouldn't be able to publish a story written in Isaac Asimov's Robot universe. (In fact, I'm not entirely certain I won't run into copyright hassles just by printing the _name_ Isaac Asimov.)

I've been working steadily on a series of "best-of" volumes which, I hope, will be released in very limited print circulation over the summer. These will contain what I consider to be the best stories that have appeared in Quanta. If any of you have a personal favorite, I entreat you to write me and tell me about it. I'm also looking for illustrations to put in these volumes. If there are any artists out there willing to donate their material to this cause, please contact me. In fact, I'm always interested in receiving art submissions, either for cover art or otherwise.

Rune Johansen, of Kjeller Norway recently gave me an interesting idea. He suggested that it would make it easier for Norwegians to submit material to Quanta if there were someone who could competently translate stories from Norwegian into English. This, of course, could apply to all languages, from any of the multiple countries (I've lost count, to tell you the truth, but I think it's around 20) to which Quanta is currently distributed. Just as sort of a preliminary query, are there any bi-linguals out there who would be willing to donate their time to translate stories into English? If so, please write me. I'm very interested in this as a possible way of get more European or otherwise international fiction into Quanta, a goal which I feel is desirable.

That's about it for this column, for this issue. I really want to thank all of you again for responding so quickly, and in such volume, to my call for submissions. Keep them rolling in.

Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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